This is a bit of a sticky issue. If the patient doesn’t feel the protection of confidentiality, they may withhold the very information necessary to bring about their return to health.

People won’t seek help if it means they could lose their children.

I did say “advised”. The whole reason to go to a doctor or counsellor is to get advice. Part of that advice would be to talk to and include the family. There is little chance that the children would be taken off someone presenting with depression as that would involve hundreds of thousands of children. The family are as equally worried and need advice themselves. They need to know what signs to look for. They need to be told what to read etc.. They absolutely need to be involved. In a sense patient confidentially as at the family level here and not the individual level.

PS It’s brave of this woman to come forward.

Confidentiality doesn’t apply to patient displaying desires to self harm – issue is a general lack of understanding RE depression, see my comment below.

Anne – you’re obviously more informed than most on this issue so I’d like to ask if you might agree that perhaps it’s not just the drug but the unsuitability of the drug for the person and therefore a mix of the drug used and monitoring of the patient?

I ask only because of experience with anti-depressants of different kinds, producing different, yet always positive results. So for me, they have been life savers.

I am not sure how to reply to you Tomy – I mean technologically – so will see if it will post for you to read this way.

I am sorry to inform you but it is the medication, not the patient or combination or anything else. The hypothesis behind these drugs is backwards – one of the biggest “WHOOPS!” in medicine! Serotonin is NOT low in depression. It is serotonin metabolism that is low & that is what these drugs are designed to impair. That is what the expert for the Paxil makers testified to in the WY case – when you impair serotonin metabolism you produce impulsive murder & suicide according to research on serotonin since the mid 50′s. As for giving the drugs for anxiety Dr. Murray Essler in Australia found just over a decade ago that those suffering anxiety have serotonin levels eight times higher than normal. Of course he asked why we were giving these antidepressants that only make the problem worse by increasing serotonin levels. Feel free to join me on Facebook to learn more. Whatever you do DO NOT EVER STOP AN ANTIDEPRESSANT ABRUPTLY!!!! That is far more dangerous than staying on one of these drugs!!!!

Ann, I hope you forgive me for being cynical – I think we have to be, and in fact, you appear to encourage us to be cynical about what we are told.

It’s very hard for me to take people at their word about this issue. My own experience has not been negative in the use of anti depressants though I know there are areas that both sides of this discussion seem to agree with that I’m more than a little lazy about (exercise, diet)

I went to http://www.drugawareness.org/ and noted that there is an area describing alternatives. The cynic in me rolls his eyes when they see something called “Young Living Essential Oils” as an alternative. I have no wish to feel as I did during my darkest of times and depend on something behind which I currently see no science. That said – I don’t believe that “alternative” medicine exists. If it works, it’s medicine – with the “alternative” dropped.

I don’t believe in prayer, God etc – none of that is a comfort to me – reason is a comfort to me. And reason right now tells me that when I hit major lows I need to act on it. That action so far has been my GP and medication that I have responded to.

To some extent I feel a “if it’s not broke don’t fix it” attitude. And so, I don’t understand why (for me) I should look to alternatives. (I don’t mean I should ignorantly ignore them – I mean that I fail to see the need)

Can you provide a few links to unbiased research around the issue as I feel it may help me with decisions in the future?

As an aside (and not directed at you Ann), people often seem to encourage people to talk to someone. I don’t know if anyone else who has suffered from depression agrees but for me, I think it’s absolute BS. Sure, let family and friends know that you might need a little support – the kind of people who keep you in mind in a social situation and don’t give you sh*t for not wanting to go along or go home early – but this idea that everyone needs to find something in their past that they need to deal with I think is tripe.

For me, and I’m pretty sure for many, it’s a case of finding something creep up and trying to put balance on it before allowing it to spiral. That’s not about having a hug with Robin Williams while he tells you “It’s not your fault” – it’s about perspective. Not simple, in fact a very large challenge, but practical and possible.

Sorry for the essay btw folks!

Incorrect. The primary presenting symptom of depression related suicide is death. There is only so much health professionals can do, and we are already governed by rules and regs, for example, confidentiality doesn’t apply in the case of patient displaying a desire to self harm, commit suicide. The issue here is that families are every bit important in preventing suicide of relatives – learn the signs, learn the display symptoms, if you are in any way concerned, contact a professional – whether GP, psychologist, get the relative to an A&E unit immediately, don’t delay.
There are no markers for depression related suicide, only for suicide relating to psychosis. As it currently stands, until a better understanding of depression is achieved, everything we can do in relation to depression related suicide is being done – awareness, knowledge, information.

James, the family are not always involved at present. They are not given information or consulted or advised or even given any reading material.

This woman is hardly calling on the law to be changed if she had been involved. She obviously feels there is a lack of family involvement. That’s her whole point.

The entire medical profession, like many professions, need to wake up to their old fashioned ways. The number of people googling on the internet as a substitute for advice and involvement is incredible. Unfortunately what they find is more often than not rubbish. The stand offish behaviour of the medical profession must change. A visit to the doctor should be only part of a larger data gathering and educational exercise led by the doctor. You only have to look at the complete failure of doctors to stop their patients smoking or becoming obese to realise that.

Hi William, in the case of depression everything that can be done is being done. In general, all that is needed is an understanding on the part of the professional that the family may not be fully aware of what depression is, as obviously the professional sees more of such cases than the family. The family is never powerless though in the provision of care — if you feel you’re not getting information ask for it, we don’t mind if you ask, it’s what we’re here for. If we still don’t give it or satisfy your needs, get a second opinion – you’re never powerless!

@JamesConnelly (or whatever pseudo-name you operate under…)
Your national government information-service (RTE) had last weekend
an interview with a Welsh-based wellbeing professional and the ‘chief’
psychiatrist in the southern-republic. He termed her policy of providing
that there is now one anti-depressant prescription ‘per-population’ in the
republic as a ‘shocking and worrying aspect’ to health-care provision.
-
Yet, it seems always (in éire) that the law of 2PAssOn applies with all
subjects that the local (well-intentioned, wealth-creating merchant-class)
Irish structure of ‘go-gooding’ seems to get nowhere? Even more-so, it
only intensifies? [the xtian need to ‘do something’ faced with Mr.Liffey von-
-Trevelyan’s corn?
-
@AndrewSB49 terms this loco-motion as putting the matter “on the back
burner” …& yet I ask myself, in this context, whether @AndrewSB49 is
talking about your southern-O’Irish leaders controlling the leavers of hell?
-
If they can, as Andrew suggests, place pressing matters of life & death:
“on the rear burner” (back-burner)… is @AndrewSB49 talking about the
levers of burn-element (to the human survivor, thus-far, as one would
conceive the trolls in-hell have leverage to-do at will) that the comptrollers-
-of-Irish have the same right-to-do?
Why is that? And why does no one ever step-forward and say: “it was me”?
- https://t.co/ikcYtO3 = ?
~):(~

James, it wasn’t just one doctor in our case, no one in the clinic would discuss the matter with us. Matters have improved and the patient is much better a year later but at the time I felt that the doctors approach was daft and that the family, and my wife is a nurse, should be more involved or at the very least giving some information to read. In general I believe that the idea that you go into a doctor’s rooms, talk to him, get a prescription and leave is wrong and very old fashioned. I don’t want to have to repeat what I said but in most non trivial cases patients should be given access to appropriate medical web sites that help them fully understand the illness, in these cases how they can help, explain what can be done, issue warnings so tragedies might be avoided, education and further reading suggestions. This would cost peanuts and would help counteract the bogus and fraudulent web sites that the web is full of.

If a patient goes to a doctor, gets told very little, Googles the web and gets bogus solutions, ignores doctors advice and dies is it not partly the doctors fault? Was Stephen Jobs of Apple let down by the doctors because he trusted quacks and avoided what might have been a life saving operation?

More conspiracy theory nonsense.

We need the parallel services of doctors And the talking therapies together. If a doctor has 30 patients to assess in a morning there isn’t a hope of enough time to even begin to sort out as complex an issue as depressive illness. The recruitment embargo has meant that many psychiatric clinics have no counsellor at all. If our government is serious about mental health then they should ensure it is resourced properly. And don’t start me on the black hole that is the total lack of a decent service for 16-18 year olds

What!? So what you’re saying is that someone who has basically lost her family due to mental illness has no right to an opinion?!?

Whether she is right or wrong to call for legislation is not the issue. Mental health and physical health are VERY different.
For physical health, you’re history will be there and it’s about how your body responds.
For mental health the observations of the family (or friends) amounts to a very valuable discourse on symptoms that the sufferer is less likely to be in a state to actually accurately notice.

In your effort to be objective about this Eoghan you have failed – you’ve instead exposed your inability to empathise.

Comparing mental and physical health problems is something people do regularly but doesn’t make any sense to me, from experience. If I have a broken arm I go to a doctor who will send me for an x-ray, put it in a sling and go for Physio if necessary.

When I was suffering from Panic disorder I had the misfortune of going to a GP. I was put on “anti-depressants” even though it says in the MIMS that there can be a risk of mania. I went on to develop serious mental health difficulties. And when that happened I was never informed that “anti-depressants” could have triggered the mania, even though it is in the Psychiatrist’s DSM (Diagnostic and Statistic Manual). Basic but vital information was withheld from me, which seriously affected my recovery. So I have learned to be my own expert on my own mental health, as once I handed over my power to other people they nearly destroyed me. Amnesty even recognise some people like myself as “experts by experience”. I research mental health on an almost daily basis. I listen to honest doctors who tell the TRUTH. But I do not trust mainstream Psychiatrists and do not see them as mental health “experts”. They were proven to be fakes almost 40 years ago in the Rosenhan experiment. They are pseudo Scientists. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqaptRYjhq4

“whackadoodle conspiracy claptr